Social Enterprises: Businesses With a Heart

Tomorrow is Day of the Hearts, Valentine’s Day!

I have been writing 40% of my time about social enterprises, business, sustainable living, and economic resilience since I was literally engaged with the social entrepreneurship project with CHEd, Mariners, TBM, and CBSUA for the last two years. The project titled “Developing

Social Enterprises for Economic Resilience” has been terminated, and the whole team is in the final stages of preparing the terminal report for submission next week.

Time flies so fast. The project, as the cliche goes, has now ended. On a lighter note, the project was for me, a love story from the beginning of the courtship to the proposal and engagement. The engagement was long and filled with lots of love. I spent the entire period in the communities, traveling from Camarines Sur to Albay, with workshops and seminars on building and developing social enterprises among disaster survivors, which an expert on SE development called lovingly “businesses with a heart.”

After the engagement, what would the marriage look like? I want to think that the Terminal Report would help seal the bond of an excellent relationship where hundreds of budding social entrepreneurs in disaster-prone communities learned multiple basic livelihood skills and formed soft skills that nurtured the care for the environment and health, as well as in sharing resources and inspiring lessons of resilience in the face of global challenges. The CHEd may extend us another project to start or continue anew with another love project; why not?

I first heard about “Business with a Heart” from Dr. Norby Salonga, Founding Director of Lasallian Social Enterprise for Economic Development (LSEED), as a plenary speaker in the afternoon session of the two-day Bicol Regional Social Enterprises Summit held last November 28-29 at the Vista Mall in Naga City. In the morning plenary, Dr.Lisa Dacanay, President of the Institute for Social Entrepreneurship in Asia (ISEA) and Convener of Poverty Reduction through Social Entrepreneurship (PRESENT) Coalition, talked about “Social Entrepreneurship as Pathway towards Poverty Reduction, Climate Action, and Sustainable Development.” She emphasized that these businesses, with a heart, explicitly pursue poverty reduction/alleviation as a primary objective, provide goods and services, and generate positive economic and social value distributed to benefit people experiencing poverty as primary stakeholders.

As I listened to the success stories of these social enterprises, I began to see them as beautiful love stories of men and women who struggled to rise from poverty and climbed their way as wealth-creating partnerships that defied the odds. These businesses with a heart are sprouting everywhere as far as Sultan Kudarat in Mindanao with the collaboration between Bote Central and Philippine Coffee Alliance, TRICOM, SK Coffee Ventures & KMDO production, processing, and marketing of Kape Dulangan, their brand of coffee to a growing local market, as part of their Ancestral Domain Development Plan.

Another love story of social entrepreneurship is the woman called Nanays from Payatas, the famous dumpsite in Quezon City, who was making and selling rags to become partner artisans co-creating upcycled scrap fabric woven into designer bags, wallets, clothes, accessories, and home furnishings. Today, it is a multi-awarded fashion and design house selling globally, recognized for improving the quality of life of more than 1000 women from 16 poor communities. These empowered Nanays are employed full-time, earning for their basic needs with more than enough savings, paid living wages with full benefits. Then, there is the love story of the Mutual Benefit Association, wholly owned and governed by Nanays and called CARD- Mutually Reinforcing Institutions (MRIs) in 85 provinces nationwide. There are seven million economically challenged women/Nanays, and 27 million are insured. It has assets of PhP 60B, loan outstanding of PhP31.8 B, and savings of PhP 27.3B, with the first entity set up in 1986.

Look them up on their websites; they are inspiring love stories that can thug your hearts.

Yes, social enterprises are love stories of growth and resilience. It is not all roses, sunshine, and butterflies, roses. Like any love story, there are challenges, even in beautiful relationships. You lose, you fall, and you fail. However, with determination and perseverance as partners, social enterprises with strong bonds and support grow and prosper.

Building a business with heart operates on the principle of “Triple Bottom Line.” It is a holistic approach around three Ps: PEOPLE: social enterprises prioritize societal welfare, fair wages and jobs. PLANET: environmental responsibility is necessary, whether in using sustainable materials, reducing carbon footprints, or promoting conservation efforts; these enterprises are green at heart. PROFIT: unlike non-profits, social enterprises aim for profitability, but the gains are often reinvested into the social mission or used to further societal or environmental goals.

“In an era where consumers are now conscious of their options, social enterprises present a win-win scenario. They offer quality products and services while addressing social and environmental challenges. For the budding entrepreneurs out there, social enterprises represent an exciting frontier, a realm where you can achieve financial success without compromising on your ideals. It is a reminder that in business, heart and soul have as much a place as strategy and skill.”